Recent progress in metal-organic cages for biomedical application: Highlighted research during 2018–2023

Metal-organic cages (MOCs) are a class of widely used nanosize supramolecular architectures with specific geometric shapes and confined cavities, constructed from the coordination interactions between metal ions and organic ligands, and have aroused wide research interest in various fields including catalysis, molecular sensing, adsorption separation and biomedical applications in the past few decades. Due to the moderate cavities, easy surface functionalization, superior host–guest interactions, and improved drug accumulation at lesions, the exploration of MOCs-based biomedical materials have been in full swing and pushing the research in this field to an unprecedented level. In this review, we outline a summary of recent advances in metal–organic cages for biomedical applications during 2018–2023, and give representative examples of each from bioimaging, biosensing, drug delivery, cancer therapy and antimicrobial. The remaining challenges and potential directions for MOCs in the further development application in biomedicine are also discussed, aiming to give precise guidance on the key trends of biological activity and potential biomedical applications of MOCs.